


Dear Senator

by Zabeta



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Author believes government can do good things, BadBoss!Ben, Ben bends Dark, Did I mention our heroes are nerds?, F/M, HaplessStaffer!Mitaka, Hawk’n’Dove (bar), Lobbyist!Poe, Lobbyist!Rey, Meet-Cute, Minor pining, Non-partisan, Realistic amount of swear words, Reporters creating anxiety, Senator!Ben, Snoke is a pair of coal barons, US Senate AU, mention of masturbation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-05-02 03:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19190971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zabeta/pseuds/Zabeta
Summary: A response to@Reylo_Prompts: "When Senator Ben Solo announces which way he’ll vote on a controversial bill, Rey organizes a letter writing campaign. When that doesn’t work, Ben finds he suddenly has company on his morning run - Rey’s more persistent than he’d expected.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There's much more of this story in my head, but the perfect prompt came at an imperfect time. Putting this out into the world as a placeholder, but there's more coming soon, including romance, smut, and the type of political machinations that might make Ben's Grandma Padmé proud.
> 
> NOTE that the rating and characters listed are both prospective. (Sorry, that means NO SMUT YET.) Happy reading!

 

Senator Ben Solo stalked through silent marble halls, still dark at this hour of the morning, until he stood in front of the flags beside the door to his office. As he searched for his keys he saw a huge bundle of mail on the floor, newspapers, regular letters, and several large bundles of identical postcards.

“Well, shit.”

Wedging himself in the heavy door to hold it open, he bent to gather up the paper and stepped into the reception area. He dropped everything but his keys and his coffee on the receptionist’s desk and pulled out one of the cards. They were all the same, and they matched the group that had arrived yesterday. Someone was not at all happy with his position on scrap metal recycling, and these postcards had been coming in from around the country. The author of the one in his hand had added a personal note, “You cannot deny the truth that is your family. What does your mother think of your position?”

He tossed it back on the pile, shaking his head at what some people thought was persuasive.  Thank God for the blood-pressure reducing power of his morning run.

Ten minutes later he stepped through the unmarked door that led out of his personal office and made his way through a series of underground passageways out to the west lawn of the Capitol. The sun was rising behind him, tinting the Washington Monument a glowing shade of pink, and he set off at an easy, loping pace.

 

He had just looped around the Lincoln Memorial, enjoying the dappled light beneath the avenue of trees by the Reflecting Pool, when a voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Excuse me, Senator. Hi. I’m Rey Jackson?. D’you mind if I join you?”

Elected officials weren’t usually threatened by the same number of creepy stalkers that made celebrities’ lives hell, but since a high proportion of the ones that did get in his face were certifiably insane, he had been trained in how to de-escalate and get out. His first and favorite approach was always a thick cocoon of rudeness.

“I do, actually,” he enunciates, without even looking in her direction

“Oh, then I’ll just take a minute. We hadn’t heard any responses to our letter-writing campaign, and we’d really like a chance to explain our position.”

“Call my office.” His second approach, one that worked especially well at moments like these, was to rely on his imposing physique. “Excuse me,” he said, stretching his long legs into a stride that ate up the rest of the distance between her and 17th Street...

...where, unfortunately, some massive motorcade was passing, preventing anyone from crossing for a few minutes. Long enough for her to catch up.

She stood there springing up and down on her toes as they waited for the road to clear. She wasn’t ready to give up. “That’s a nice stride, Senator Solo. So, I’m just wondering, do you actually see the cards we’ve been sending? I think there are some strong arguments…oh!”

He had set off again, doing his best to maintain his long stride without making it look like he was running away. He was desperate now to reclaim the solitude that would allow him to make it through the rest of his day on an even keel. Politics was an odd occupation for an introvert like him, but it was what he had been born for, and he had built in accommodations to make it work. Regular aerobic exercise without anyone talking to him was the most important of them.

But apparently fate had something else in mind for him that day, because he put his foot wrong on a patch of loose gravel and felt his front leg skid out from under him. He hit the ground hard, ass first. In a surprisingly short amount of time, before he’d managed to heave himself up again, he heard the same bright voice behind him. (Was she British? He hadn’t noticed the accent before.)

“Oof! Are you ok? Ouch. Here, let me help you.”

He took her hand without thinking about it, and was surprised when she didn’t budge, in spite of counterbalancing his much greater weight. She was fast, and strong, and she was hardly sweating. His mother used to say, “horses sweat, men perspire, and women glow,” which had seemed like utter bullshit until that moment. She had roses in her cheeks, eyes brightened by exercise, and dimples he wanted to dive into.

He caught himself staring at the woman in front of him with his mouth hanging open, and did his best to recover. “Right. Thank you. That was really very kind, but don’t let me slow you down. I just need a minute to, uh, work out the kinks and I’ll be fine.” He was shaking her hand, a politician’s reflex that in this case gave him one more moment of odd pleasure and also made him look like a fool.

She backed away slowly, looking at him with concern, and he waved her off again. She started to jog backward, then turned and ran off when he finally picked up his own pace to a fast walk. Her stride was smooth and elegant, and Senator Solo found himself enjoying the view until her figure became too small to make out.

 

Hearings, constituent meetings, fundraisers, and a couple of votes filled the rest of the time between his arrival back at the office, freshly showered, and his decision to call it a day at 10:30 that night. He didn’t think about his stalker again until just before he drifted off, when it occurred to him that he could probably get off thinking about her. He was too far gone towards sleep by then to follow through though, and fell asleep with his hand tucked down the front of his boxers.

 

Rey was a morning person, and she had a wide smile on her face as she climbed the short hill between the group house she shared and Constitution Avenue. She decided to turn over to First Street, so she could see the Capitol Dome in the morning light. She felt kind of stupid admitting it to anyone else, but she always choked up when she caught this view of the Dome. The idea that someone like her could be in a position to make the world a better place never failed to strike her with awe. All very Mr.-Smith-Goe- to-Washington, but that didn’t make the feeling less intense.

Halfway down the Mall, she passed the curb where the Senator had fallen the week before and felt the flicker of regret that seemed to haunt the spot now.

It had seemed like a great idea when Poe had first suggested it. They had been brainstorming strategies over beer one Sunday afternoon when she told them she’d seen the Senator out running at the same time she liked to go. Poe thought it would be a fantastic idea for her to ‘casually’ run into him and ‘informally’ introduce herself. They had been so excited with their plan - and possibly so buzzed - that they hadn’t really considered who they were dealing with. He might be their top target, the one Senator in a position to sway the votes they needed if he would only reconsider his position, but he was also Ben Solo, the original Mr. Tall Dark and Socially Inept, notoriously hard to talk to.

She’d approached him like the fresh-faced idiot she was and he had _actually, literally_ run away from her.

Since he hadn’t even looked at her the first two times she tried to interrupt his run (TWO times, God, she _was_ an idiot), she might have been able to recover. But then she had to be there when he hit the dust, and embarrassed him further by offering to help him up. She had seen him take a good look at her then. There was no way he was going to forget that disaster now.

She’d spent some time during her runs trying to come up with a graceful apology, hoping she might cross his path one morning and get a chance to redeem herself. Now, it occurred to her that she might have scared him off his morning runs, too. She hadn’t seen him since for a full week. The idea that she had disturbed him enough that he had had to change his routine was mortifying. She picked up her pace, as if she could run away from the horrible feeling of shame in her gut.

She was running her second flight of steps up the front of Lincoln when she heard someone say, “Hi.  Uh, Ms. Jackson, isn’t it?” and two large feet stopped on the step above hers. She raised her head to see Senator Solo peering down at her, and he descended two more steps so that their eyes were almost level.

He looked out over the reflecting pond, squinting into the sun instead of turning back to look at her. He had his hands on his hips and he was breathing hard, which stretched his sand-colored t-shirt over some of the most beautifully developed chest muscles Rey had ever seen in person.

“This your regular run, or were you going to do stairs until we crossed paths?”

“Huh? Oh, no! My regular run.”

He smirked a bit to let her know he was teasing, which gave her the courage to continue,  “How’s your, um...where you fell?”

“Well, once I got the Senate nurse to pull all the gravel out, it was fine.” He had smiled and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as he said this, but still kept his body turned away.

“Oh, good. Good. Hey, I wanted to…”

He finally turned to look directly at her, shaking his head. “Please, don’t apologize. You’re fine.  Have a good run.” He gave her one more lopsided smile and jogged down the steps before he turned around at the bottom.  “You’re still going to call my people about that thing, right?”

“Sure! Thank you, Senator.”

He waved in acknowledgement, and Rey turned back toward the statue of Mr. Lincoln and bounded up the rest of the steps two at a time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We dive a little deeper into what Rey cares about. She’s really good at her job - the Senator’s staff though? Some not so much. Will Rey be able to get past the Senator’s voting record, political connections, and bad life choices?
> 
> Trigger warning for binder-throwing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changed the fic rating because still no smut! (You’re welcome/I’m sorry.) Still having too much fun with the specifics of this AU, but I cross my heart this story will get there, and I will change the rating again when it does. Thanks to those of you who left kudos and comments - they really do light a fire under me as I turn to the next chapter.
> 
> Flypaper_brain beta’d this chapter and it is consequently better in every way. AlbaStargazer made the absolutely perfect moodboard you'll at the top of this chapter, and I am still jumping up and down about it!

When the sound of Finn’s text broke Rey’s focus, she realized it had been an hour since her last colleague wished her good night on their way out the door. 

Finn  
  
Hey, Babe! Poe’s picking up City Lights. What’s your ETA?  
  
Damn it  
  
How’s it dinner time already  
  
Biked today - gimme 30

 

She saved her file one last time, slid her computer into her messenger bag, and double-checked the lights and fans around the office before slipping out and locking up. 

They shared the Victorian townhouse office with two other associations, all three groups making the same trade-offs between modern facilities and proximity to the Hill. Their out-of-town members thought it was charming, and the working fireplaces were actually pretty awesome in January. But it was now June, and she fought a daily battle to maintain her train of thought while poorly functioning in-window air conditioners rattled and buzzed and dripped in the background...except on days like today, when she had been completely lost to everything and everyone around her.

She coasted down North Capitol for a block before cutting over to safer one-way streets. Her mind drifted back to the strategy she had been working out since the Senator had told her to call for an appointment that morning. She’d been as high as a kite for about an hour, which was when she called and left a third message for the Energy staffer who never answered his phone.

Realistically, it was too soon for the Senator to talk to his staff, but it still felt like a set-back.

She spent the next couple of hours lining up all of the facts relevant to Senator Solo’s home state of Indiana, making calls to her members in Evansville, Kokomo, and Fort Wayne. Then after lunch she started on the personal background research, digging beneath the stuff everyone in DC knew to get a better sense of what really made the man tick. Her stomach had fluttered in an idiotic way when she logged in to Bloomberg and Politifact for the basics: education (JD from Princeton, BA  _ with honors in History _ from University of Chicago), military service (Marines),  family (none), religion (Jewish). It went from fluttering to nauseous as she read his voting record, and she had a violent stomach ache by the time she had emerged from a deep and twisty rabbit-hole of nine-years’ worth of media coverage.

His law-and-order rhetoric verged on barbaric. His relationship with the fossil-fuel-peddling Snoke brothers had sent her out for a speed walk around the block. But the single fact that had made her reconsider whether there was any point in talking to him at all had been a puff-piece about his mother. 

Who was still living. 

When he listed his family as (none). 

There had been a lot of things in that piece that were arguably more important to her present objective, but the fact of the existence of a deliberately disregarded family was the one that made her think he might actually be the monster so many people saw in him. It brought up her own aching desire for the sense of belonging she imagined parents could have given her, an overwhelming feeling that had caused her to spiral into self-destruction more than once in her life.

To get back on track, she imagined she was developing her case to deliver it to the other Senator from Indiana instead - same need for the law, same constituents affected, similar fundamental interests, but much less confusing to contemplate. She hoped that her friends could help her get her head around the rest of it over dinner.

 

The table was already set when Rey walked in. The formal dining room was the center of the house, and they all ate together three or four nights a week. Rose was lighting candles and Finn was folding napkins as Rey greeted them with air kisses.

“I’m gross - do I have time to shower before Poe gets here?”

Rose smiled over her shoulder, “Probably - not promising there will be dumplings, though, if you dawdle.”

Rey was quick, but she emerged to the fantastic smells and mouth-watering sight of a table covered with the city’s best Chinese food. “Poe, you shouldn’t have! There’s so much!”

“Makes good leftovers, and I’m not going to be around to feed you for a week, so you’d better make it last! 

It was their running joke that Finn, Rose, and Rey were kids who depended on Poe for everything - food, transportation, and common sense. He was the only one of them who could afford a car, and he made a habit of sharing take-out and groceries, insisting they take them with so much charm that Rey could rarely bring herself to say no, even though it had made her really uncomfortable when she first moved in. Finn convinced her that it made Poe happy to help, and Rey had learned to live with it when she realized Poe would let her take over all of the plumbing, electrical and small structural repairs the old house endlessly demanded.

She looked up from filling her plate to see her three best friends’ faces glowing in the candlelight and took a minute to enjoy the feeling of being welcomed and wanted. She felt the insistent belief that she was worthless recede a bit, and the voice trying to convince her that she had no business talking to Senator Solo went silent. This family she had built couldn’t fill all the gaps, but it was a damn good start.

“So, d’you guys mind workshopping this meeting with me? I think your advice paid off, Poe. I might have a meeting with Senator Solo himself,” she beamed.

Rose cheered, “Seriously? That’s amazing!” at the same time that Finn exclaimed, “Of course it worked, Rey - you’re brilliant!”

Poe just looked at her with his fork halfway to his mouth, “It did?”

“What, you didn’t think it would?” she asked.

“No! I mean, I thought it  _ could _ , but Senator Solo…” he stopped, lost for words.

“Senator Solo is a misanthrope who doesn’t like to be bothered while he works out?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s not what happened, right?” Poe smirked.

“Wait, Poe, you told Rey to stalk him knowing it would piss him off?” Finn was not amused, and Rey interrupted before they got too far off track.

“Actually, that is what happened, but I ran into him again today and he asked me to call his office. So I will not kill you this time, but only if you give me what I need right now...and turn over the rest of the dumplings.” 

With her plate refilled, Rey laid out her ideas, “We have a really solid case to make with Solo. An amendment to reduce the regulatory burden on scrap recyclers is pro-conservation, pro-jobs, pro-innovation - all of it. We’ve got employers who want to show him their operations, school kids’ letters about recycling, and we think about 3000 postcards have gone out.”

Finn whistled - 3000 was a big number for what was essentially a grass-roots campaign. Rey was the only paid lobbyist for the Scrap Recyclers Association, and she had spent hours on the phone and in the field to get that many cards in.

“It’s amazing, right? The environmental angle has really exploded — we’ve had a bunch of Sierra Clubs wanting in on this. Which is great, but I think the angle to take with Indiana, and especially Solo, is innovation. I was kinda hoping you’d come with me, Rose.”

“You want me to talk about the patents?” Rose nodded, thinking it through. “I’ve got all the numbers on generalized economic impact if we can get those processes to scale. Can you give me numbers on the volume of raw materials? I can convert that into Indiana jobs.”

“Of course!” Rey’s eyes gleamed. “And guess what Senator Solo just cut the ribbon on last month?”

“An auto worker retraining facility?” Finn beamed.

“You know it. So if you can speak to the transferability of those technical skills to your process, that would be awesome.” 

Poe wiped his mouth, “Sounds brilliant, Rey. Don’t think I could make a better plan myself.”

Rey’s face grew serious again, “Yeah, the facts are great. But you know Solo - I mean, you worked with him, didn’t you?”

Poe looked uncomfortable, “I mean, we traveled in the same circles for a while, a long time ago, but…”

“Here’s where I’m stuck: who the hell  _ is _ this guy? I mean, he seems smart, and if I hadn’t spent the day researching his votes I might have said he was hot…”

“Wait,” Rose asked, one hand up. “How is his hotness dependent on his voting record?” 

Finn made a disgusted face and Rey rolled her eyes. “Ugh, stop it. He’s a horrible human being. What I need to know is how would you begin to talk to him, Poe, knowing who he really is?”

“With most of the guys like that - women, too - I guess you just have to pretend you don’t know anything about them. Unless he’s being a terrible person in real time in front of you, you just focus on making your case,” Poe shrugged.

“OK, I can see that. But what about persuading him? I mean, he’s practically in bed with the Snokes, they probably wrote this language for him...is there any chance I can even make a difference?” 

“Yeah, that’s a problem. I mean, what we would do at the Union is find a way to engineer a vote trade, or maybe make a donation that matches the other guy’s…” Poe held up his hand as Rey began to object, “Yeah, I know. No way that works for you, and honestly, the Union couldn’t have out-bid the Snokes even when we had real money.”

Finn cut in, “So, I’m new to this, but couldn’t she go and just see how he reacted to her arguments, and then go from there?”

“You mean, like, just hope he’ll see the light?” Rey asked.

“Yeah, is that totally unprofessional?”

Poe smiled, an odd gleam in his eye. “It’s actually the perfect approach for Rey, Finn. Since she started by stalking him, I think the bar for professional conduct is already pretty low.”

He laughed at his own joke so hard that he didn’t see the last dumpling coming until it hit him in the face.

 

Phasma’s sleek blonde head was bent over her phone when Ben stepped off the curb and into the waiting car. There were many perks to being a Senator. The way the airport police ignored idling vehicles with Senate plates propped on the dashboard was one of his favorites.

“Anything that couldn’t wait for the office, Phasma?”

“Nothing urgent, just wanted to go over your schedule for the week before the locusts descend. There must be a dozen fly-ins this week and they’ve got you in back-to-backs from lunch today until your flight Thursday.”

He sighed. “All right, let me see it,” and held his hand out for the stack of cards, one for each day of the week. All of the appointments would be on his phone, too, but he had a fondness for these archaic agendas he could slide into his pocket.

He scanned for her name, Rey Jackson, hoping she’d have been able to get in to see him by now. To be fair, his schedule was packed, and he wasn’t even sure what her issue was. If it wasn’t coming up that month it was unlikely they would have put her on his calendar at all. He’d have to double-check the staff schedules, too.

“Phasma, have Baz print me the list of staff meetings this week, too. I’d like to get a better idea of what’s going on besides these fucking grip-and-grin delegations from home.”

 

The Senator rarely stepped into the bullpen where most of his legislative aides worked, certainly never right after he’d walked off his flight. Today, as he stood there just inside the door from the senior staff offices, opening his own mail with a wonky-looking antique pen knife, several very non-essential conversations went silent. He looked up in surprise when he noticed that all eyes were on him. 

“Good morning. Don’t let me stop you - really!” he said absently. When no one went back to work he barked, “As you were!”, and some of the conversations resumed quietly.

He noticed a plastic bin full of postcards on the floor beside one hapless staffer’s desk, a junior aide who did some of his Energy work. Ben stole a glance at his nameplate - Dopheld Mitaka.

“Mitaka, are those things still coming in? Jeez, that’s a lot. What’s got our friends at home so worked up?”

Mitaka, who sat up at attention when the Senator spoke to him, relaxed and waved his hand dismissively. “Oh those? It’s that scrap recycling bill we co-sponsored - the one Mr. Snoke asked us to sign on to. A lot of them aren’t even from Indiana!”

“Really? Have you composed the response? I’d like to see it.” Mitaka’s phone began to ring as the Senator asked this question, and Mitaka looked over at the number and turned back to his boss to respond.

“No, no - don’t let me interrupt your real work!” he waved his penknife at the phone and turned to look over the partition to see what his Agriculture aide Sloane was working on. As he read a constituent letter on her desk, he overheard Mitaka’s end of the conversation.

“Senator Solo’s office. This is Dopheld Mitaka….Yeah, hi. Yes, I’ve gotten all of your messages...sure...I’m sure you can understand we get pretty swamped in here...Right, well, Ms. Jackson, if it were a priority for the Senator to meet you I am sure he would have said something about it. I mean, honestly, this is a minor issue on our agenda. Sure...uh-huh...Look,  I’ll call you if anything changes.”

Ben leaned into Mitaka’s cubicle, and asked quietly, but very distinctly, “Who was that, Mr. Mitaka?”

“That’s the girl from the scrap recycling association - fourth time she’s called.” Mitaka rolled his eyes.

_ “What girl?” _

“Her name is Jackson, first name starts with an R...some boy’s name. Robin or...Shit!” Mitaka yelped as the pen knife the Senator had been holding suddenly came to rest point first in the corkboard in front of his desk. Two binders went whizzing by his head onto the floor, and he ducked, covering his head with both arms.

“Phasma!” he barked out. “Baz!” 

To Mitaka he gestured with a gimme motion, “Her number. Now!” 

As he walked out with the post-it Mitaka had given him with shaking hands, Ben threw over his shoulder, “I want that response done today. And add a handwritten note to every one of them going to an Indiana address.”

 

“Senator, Mr. Hux is on line 2.” Baz stuck her head in his office to get his attention. “You have 5 minutes before they need you downstairs.”

“Hux.”

“What the hell are you doing, Solo? Phaz said you’ve got another legislative aide pissing his drawers over...what, scrap recycling?”

“And? Are you calling about the HR issue or my decision to take a meeting?”

“Fuck HR. That’s Phasma’s operation. Solo, you pay us to think for you - don’t go…”

“I do pay you. I pay you because after the citizens of Indiana saw MY name on the ballot and voted for ME, they sent me here with a budget to pay people. People who - humor me here - have an obligation to maintain the illusion that I am the actual fucking Senator.”

Ben breathed heavily into the phone for a second, waiting for Hux to respond in kind. Hearing nothing, he added, “Are we good? Phasma next?”

“Why not?”

Ben punched the button to transfer the call and slammed down the phone.

 

“Hi! We have a meeting with the Senator at 11:45? I’m Rey Jackson and this is my colleague, Rose Tico.” 

A clean-cut, dark haired young man stepped through the door behind the receptionist’s desk as if he had been waiting for them. Rey thought he looked nervous, like  _ he _ was the one taking his first meeting with a sitting U.S. Senator in a high-ceilinged wood-paneled office that screamed, “IMPORTANT PEOPLE WORK HERE.”

“I’m Dopheld Mitaka. Th-thanks for coming in.  We’ll be in here today,” he said over his shoulder, leading them into a long room with an enormous window at one end and an imposing desk in front of it. On one wall, an ornate marble fireplace was surrounded by bookcases that went all the way up to the 12-foot ceilings. 

Dozens of photographs covered the opposite wall, scenes of daily life in Indiana and posed pictures of the Senator with his constituents. There were signed photographs of the Senator with three past presidents, and one of him wearing a hard-hat at a ribbon cutting, shaking hands with a tall, sickly looking man in front of a banner that read, “Snoke Industries - Bringing Coal Back.” Rey looked away quickly and reminded herself of Poe’s advice.

As they were looking around, Mitaka explained, “We’re on the Senator’s calendar, but he has a Committee hearing and votes this morning, and he might be running late. We should get started without him.”

He invited them to sit around a glossy wood table, and they were still exchanging business cards when the Senator walked in.

The man was impressive in sweaty workout gear, but he looked like a fucking demi-god in his tailored suit. He was tall and broad, and the grandeur of the room made more sense with him in it. His wavy hair was just as unruly as it had been when he was out running, but in a glossy way that made Rey think of silk satin lingerie. He was looking at a slip of paper, half a letter-size sheet dwarfed by the strong, very masculine hand holding it. He slid it back into his breast pocket and nodded towards them before stepping behind his desk.

“Ms. Jackson, I’m so glad you could come in. Please, go on with your conversation. I have a few things that need my signature and I’ll be able to listen in.”

Rey smiled uncertainly but agreed, “Oh, of course!” It seemed odd to her, as if they were performing in a play for his benefit. This feeling was encouraged by the window behind the Senator’s head; the light of the sun behind him felt like a spotlight in the dim room and it was difficult for her to make out his face. 

She realized she might do better without that distraction anyway, and turned back to Mitaka and Rose. With her hands folded primly in front of her on the table, she started in on the points she had outlined again that morning.

“Mr. Mitaka, Senator, thank you for taking the time to meet with us. I represent the members of the Scrap Recycling Association. We have 1,500 members in the United States, running more than 4,000 facilities, both here and in more than 40 other countries. More than half a million people in the United States work for our members, and we have a very active Indiana Chapter. I think they’ve already reached out to your District office to extend an invitation to our golf outing in August.”

Rey took a breath and looked up to see Mitaka fidgeting and Rose with a tight smile, and she realized she needed to change tack and get straight to the argument.

“We’ve gone the extra mile to get a meeting with you,” Rey began, side-eyeing the Senator who rewarded her with a huff of laughter, “because the Scrap Recycling bill is going to put your constituents out of work, stifle innovation, and prolong our dependence on fossil fuels.”

Mitaka cut in, “I’m not sure how you get that - S. 1725 supports the clean, healthy reuse of industrial materials! The people we worked with to write it are very pro-environment. And frankly, the Senator takes offense at the implication that anything he supports would put people out of work.”

“Do I?” The Senator’s voice was quiet but Rey felt a chill and saw Mitaka’s face drain of color.

“Um, I mean, jobs are at the top of the Senator’s agenda, so we take that seriously. And we would never put something forward that depressed job growth.”

Rey felt bad for the poor man, who looked much younger without the supercilious sneer narrowing his eyes. “Oh, of course! Let me explain where we’re coming from with the jobs — it’s actually connected to the point about innovation. Rose?”

“Gentlemen, Rey invited me here to tell you a little about my patent, and some of the other work being done with new processes to recycle scrap metal and electronics. I won’t bore you with the details today,” Rose’s disarming smile made it clear that she would like nothing better than to keep talking about her patents, “but we’re talking about a growth industry. And this is particularly relevant to your voters, Senator, because it requires workers with a skillset similar to those in the auto industry.”

Rey could see the Senator shift, sitting forward in his chair at this revelation. She tagged on, “Our concern with S. 1725 is that it’s likely to reduce the flow of raw materials Rose needs to a trickle.”

“So you’re talking about _prospective_ jobs?” Mitaka interjected, in triumph.

“That’s right,” Rey replied.

Mitaka’s assurance had returned, and he continued, “ _ Our _ main concern is with the health and safety of people who are currently employed. Our bill simply ensures that scrap recycling stays clean and safe. The potential for an environmental catastrophe from unregulated facilities…”

“I’m so sorry to interrupt, Mr. Mitaka, but I was wondering about that. The Senator’s statement referred to environmental catastrophes, but I wasn’t sure which event that referred to? Or events? I apologize if this is ignorant, but my members couldn’t answer this question for me, either.” Rey actually succeeded in looking apologetic as she asked this question, though triumph was a better word for what she was feeling.

There was a pause while Mitaka thought, and the Senator’s quiet, dangerous voice once again floated across his desk. “That is an excellent question, Mitaka, don’t you think? Perhaps you should consult your notes.”

He got up and walked over to the table, standing behind Mitaka’s chair, “Why don’t you go ahead and do that research and let us know what you find. Ms. Jackson, Ms. Tico, do you have lunch plans?”

The women looked at each other and shook their heads and the Senator stepped to his door, calling, “Baz! Are votes still expected at 1:00? Fine. Call over and get us a table, would you? Three.” He turned back to them, “Food’s nothing to write home about, I’m afraid, but it’s convenient, and I’d like to hear more. Have either of you eaten in the Senators’ dining room?”

He led them out of his building and across the street (“So few nice days in DC, let’s breathe real air. That ok?), under the steps on the north end of the Capitol, around the metal detectors (“They’re with me”), and through beautifully decorated hallways to a large, airy, wood-panelled room. Sunlight streamed in through windows draped in silk brocade. While the Senator asked about their table, Rey and Rose turned to each other and mouthed “wow”.

The Senator picked up the thread of their business as soon as they sat down, asking Rey for more details about the problems she anticipated from his proposal. He asked Rose intelligent questions about her patent, and Rey watched him as he listened. She didn’t think she had ever seen anyone _express_ listening the way he did, with tiny changes in the set of his mouth, narrowed eyes, a tilt of the head. He looked absorbed, pushing his plate aside at one point to take notes on the back of his agenda card with a fountain pen. 

Rose was just about to explain the patent’s  commercial potential when a loud buzz interrupted them. Rey jumped, and the Senator apologized. “That, I’m afraid, is a vote. This is so rude of me, but if you don’t mind waiting, I should be back in fifteen minutes, tops.” He raised his eyebrows in a question, and when they said they would wait, he looked genuinely relieved. Pushing back his chair, he said, “Please order dessert if you like - none for me.”

Once he was all the way out of the dining room, Rose turned to Rey. “You know, you never did explain how his voting record affects his hotness.”

“There’s no denying he’s nice to look at, but did you see Mitaka? He scared the hell out of that kid! I wouldn’t be surprised if he just asked us to lunch to make a point about his lazy staffing.”

“Really, Rey? How often do you think a Senator asks a lobbyist from a cash-poor 1,500-member association to lunch in here?  The answer is  _ never _ . I think he likes you!”

“Rose! I hope he likes the points we’re making. You’re amazing, by the way. Thank you so much for your help with this.”

“Sweetie, I’m always happy to help, but it’s not me he’s smoldering at.”

“Smoldering?”

“Smoldering. Actually, I think I really do need to get going, but I’m not 100% kidding. You’ve got the advocacy piece down, but are you gonna be ok with that big, bad wolf?” Rose raised one eyebrow suggestively and Rey cracked up, drawing looks from the more buttoned-up diners nearby.

“I’ll manage. Red Riding Hood cut him open with an axe, didn’t she?” Rey laughed.

“Depends which version you read...sometimes he eats her up first. All the details tonight? Promise?”

Rose walked away, and Rey flagged down the server and ordered dessert. The triple chocolate fudge cake sounded amazing, but it had nothing to do with the anticipation Rey felt as she sat back and waited. She thought about which man the Senator really was - the cold, brutal, pragmatic politician, or the almost-warm, thoughtful problem-solver she had seen sitting across from her over lunch. It was a little difficult to remember her conviction that he was a monster, and she thought Finn might have had it right. Maybe she  _ should _ just see where this went.

There was certainly nothing wrong with appreciating the scenery while she waited.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the politics in this AU: I am committed to keeping this fic non-partisan, but I can't avoid giving my characters strong views about right and wrong - the fact that they have them is canon, but I acknowledge that the choices I make about who believes what are unavoidably political, though I've done my best to find things that have not consistently played out along party lines. 
> 
> Finding such a thing would be frankly impossible if the fic were set in 2019, so it isn't. Don't ask me when it is set, though, I'm still figuring that out -- it's sometime between when text messages became common and when Hill staff stopped using the phone except in emergencies.
> 
> And a note on future plans: The downside of an AU that springs to life instantly upon reading a great prompt is that there's A LOT of backstory and scene setting that really wants to find its way in here. I do have a plot in mind, too, but it keeps finding itself buried. HOWEVER, I am committed to keeping this short, and finishing before the RFFA anthology comes out in October. Let's see how that goes...


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey’s lunch date ends prematurely, two lonely people try to figure out what the heck they’re doing, and Poe Dameron, Union lobbyist, is in his element.

Rey’s wait for her chocolate cake was short, but she was not destined to enjoy any more of the Senatorial scenery that afternoon. 

After gobbling up the first half of her dessert, she had tried to make the second half last until he got back, actually going to the extent of  _ putting down her fork between bites _ .  “If the Senator only knew how much effort this takes…” she thought, ruefully. Nonetheless, her plate was clean and there was still no sign of him. 

There hadn’t been any more bells, so he couldn’t be stuck on the floor voting. She really did need to get back to the office, though, and she reluctantly pulled out a pen and paper and started to write a note, hoping she could leave it with the host. She was interrupted by a polished voice, which fell from the red lips of the tall, sleek woman who had appeared at her side.

“Rey Jackson, right? I’m Phasma Christie, Senator Solo’s AA. So sorry. I’m afraid we dragged him right off the floor into an emergency meeting, and he won’t be able to make it back. Don’t worry about lunch! It’s all covered. If you’re ready to go, I can walk you out. They frown on visitors wandering around here on their own.”

The woman spoke rapidly, graciously, with a confidence and charm that put Rey at ease for a moment. It was only after Rey was standing in the sunshine again, on the hot asphalt pavement in front of the Senate steps, that she wondered why exactly she had needed to be charmed.

Rey felt like she had missed a step, or maybe three, but she reminded herself how much she had just accomplished. Senator Solo had listened, asked questions, knew more about their industry than he did before the meeting. She hailed a cab and spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone debriefing with her Board members.

She determinedly did not think about the way the lines bracketing his plush lips deepened when he smiled, or how his gleaming hair moved against his collar, or the way a glimpse of the half inch of wrist emerging from his French cuffs had made her pulse beat hard in her throat.

 

At 11:30 that night, Rey was drifting into sleep when her phone beeped. Through blurry eyes, she saw a photograph she didn’t recognize on the notification screen, and she thought she was seeing things when she made out Senator Solo’s official headshot. She remembered that Poe had shared the codes for an expensive app that gave her the direct lines and cell numbers of most of the House and Senate offices. Apparently it also linked the Members’ numbers to their photos.

Senator Benjamin C. Solo  
  
Really sorry about lunch - I was looking forward to continuing our conversation. Hope you’ll keep in touch.  
  


Rey stared at her screen. She could respond in the morning. It was a work message and there was really no reason she should still be available, but her fingers started typing before her rational mind caught up.

Senator Benjamin C. Solo  
  
Don’t mention it - know how busy you are. You were generous to invite us to lunch and give us the extra time.  
  
You're working late!  
  
So are you!  
  
Oh, you know, phones multitask these days...work, home phone, music player  
  
...alarm clock :-)  
  
Oh  
  
I woke you up, didn't I?  
  
I'm sorry  
  
Please don't worry about it  
  
Will reach out to Mitaka tomorrow and send him the other info we discussed  
  
Very good.  
  


She reached to drop the phone on the nightstand and laid back, kicking off the sheets and sprawling across the bed to better catch the faint breeze from the fan at the foot of the bed. Everything she had avoided thinking about since lunch seemed to land on her chest at once, and she emptied her lungs with a forceful sigh. She had been so glad for the margarita Rose mixed her when she got home, happy not to feel the longing that walloped her now. 

She couldn’t come up with a rational explanation for the feeling. Senator Solo was objectively attractive, but so were lots of men in DC. What she was feeling was much bigger than the pang of attraction, and it was stupidly inconvenient. Maybe it was daddy issues and a longing for the father she never knew? Maybe it was just because she knew she  _ shouldn’t _ feel this way about a horrible shill for Big Coal. Why couldn’t she just fall for a nice environmental activist her own age, or maybe a solidly employed federal worker?

Whatever the cause, she needed to make this feeling go away. She had a fucking job to do. Getting tangled up in a crush on a bad-boy, unobtainable older...SENATOR for God’s sake. He was a Senator. Her job was to talk to him. If she couldn’t do that without losing her shit she needed a new career. 

 

Ben reached to drop his phone on the nightstand and stood up, needing to flee the familiar feeling of having fucked up. He couldn’t have a normal conversation with a normal person without screwing it up. He had interrupted the poor woman’s sleep like a creepy jerk because he didn’t THINK. Honestly, what made him think that she would even care about his apology?

He had been pissed for a solid hour after Phasma pounced on him as he came off the Senate floor and led him into an ‘urgent’ conference with some asshole celebrity lobbyist perseverating about drug price limits and honest-to-God claiming that “Pharmageddon” would result: companies would stop investing in R&D, people would die. The next vote had finally interrupted the lobbyist’s spiel, and he had hurried down to the floor and out again, but by the time he had found his way back to the dining room Rey and her colleague had been long gone. She hadn’t left any message.

He stalked to the kitchen and filled a crystal tumbler with ice, then pulled open the liquor cabinet in search of something that could drown the anger and self-loathing. It was too hot for scotch. Straight vodka felt like something an alcoholic would drink. He reached for the gin, planning to go back to the fridge for tonic, and caught sight of the Corellian brandy he’d shoved to the back of the cabinet. Ten years old and unopened, his father had sent it when he got his permanent place in DC. 

Another bottle just like it had been the first good stuff he’d ever tasted when he was 12, out on the back patio of their home in Georgetown. His mother had been inside schmoozing, and Han had come out and caught him moping in the dark. He had done a lot of moping in the dark that year, listening to the voices inside the house as they ran the world and raved about his mother’s cook’s coconut cake. He had probably learned more about American government on that patio than in any of the expensive schools that came after. He had always credited his mother with those lessons, but it occurred to him now that learning how to hold his liquor had been a pretty crucial lesson, too.

He put the gin back on the shelf. Since his father’s accident he had a better sense of what booze could not do. He held a piece of ice to his neck instead, and concentrated on the cold and wet. He had all he had ever wanted - the career he dreamed of, power and influence that people twenty years his senior struggled to amass. He briefly wondered why it wasn’t enough to make him happy, but that thought made him laugh. When had there ever been enough of anything for that? He didn’t have it in him to be content. Like friendships and compromise, it was just something he wasn’t good at.

He guzzled two glasses of water and padded back to bed.

 

Rey’s run the next morning started late. Three of Rose’s margaritas had probably been one too many, and it had taken her another hour to get back to sleep after the Senator’s text message came through. She was sprinting up Capitol Hill on Southwest Drive, hurrying to finish her run, when she heard someone shout her name.

“Ms. Jackson! Rey!”

She turned to see Senator Solo cutting across the lawn. Seeing that she had stopped, he put his head down and increased his speed to catch up with her. Rey watched his powerful legs churning and wondered how much muscle it took to move that body that fast. He came to rest in front of her, hands on his hips, chest heaving as he caught his breath.

She hesitated before plunging ahead with a joke she wasn’t sure she could land. Raising one eyebrow she teased, “My, how the tables have turned!”

“Hah! Right.” He smiled ruefully. “Thanks for stopping.”

“Of course. But let’s keep walking. You don’t want to cramp up.  Which way were you going?”

He nodded up the hill and walked beside her, still breathing hard.

“Don’t want to interrupt your run, but I wanted to apologize again for yesterday.”

“Stop! You were more than generous with your time - and thank you for lunch.”

He waved away her thanks, “My pleasure. Listen, there’s a reception tomorrow…retirement party for Gial Ackbar. You know him?”

“I know who he is of course. But I don’t  _ know _ him.” Rey smiled.

“He’s been a Majority staffer on Energy and Commerce since my...for decades. So everyone’ll be there. Members, committee staff, big donors. You might make some good connections.”

Rey knew the reception he was talking about. Poe had mentioned it as a networking opportunity, but her little association didn’t have enough of a presence to get an invitation. “That’s so kind of you, Senator. I’d love to. Should I call your office to follow up?”

“What? Oh, no! No. Your name will be on the guest list. Consider it done.” He looked down at her seriously, no trace of flirtation in his eyes. He hadn’t smiled since she teased him, Rey realized. He wasn’t flirting, just being kind. She let her own broad smile shrink into something more businesslike. She stopped and turned to him, offering her hand to shake.

“Thank you, Sir. Have a good morning.” She jogged backwards a few steps, moving away from him, then nodded her good-bye and turned to glide across Independence before the traffic light could change.

 

“Rose, you got me into this mess, now help me out!” Rey whined at the kitchen table that night. 

“Honey. By “mess” do you mean got you invited to the most important networking event of the Session? Because I think you did that yourself - you and your ridiculously shapely quads,” Rose scolded.

“Ugh. Don’t remind me what a big deal it is! But come with me? I need you!”

“You don’t and I can’t. You know how much Finn and I paid for those concert tickets! You will be fine. Poe will be there.”

Rey dropped her head into her hands. Her anxiety had been mounting all day. Thinking about who would be there and what she would say to them had sent her into a spiral of worry, which intensified when she thought about how rare the opportunity was. “Oh, Rose, I don’t think I can do it!”

Rose wrapped her arms around Rey and rested her chin on Rey’s shoulders. “Stop. You can. Think about how hard it is to stop you talking about your issues when we get you started. Anyway, you’re fretting about the wrong thing. The real question is, what are you going to wear?”

Rey groaned again, louder. “Stop!”

“No seriously, come on. This is the help you  _ really _ need.”

 

The dress they decided on was Rey’s, but the shoes, purse, and scarf were all Rose. It had seemed like too much that morning when Rey left the house. Now, waiting on line outside the reception room, Rey was grateful. She felt pulled together, not too formal, and her confidence increased another notch when she caught Poe’s eye as she entered the room and he came over to greet her with a hug.

“Hey, Sunshine! It’s so great you could make it - there are a dozen people you need to meet in here.” He threw his arm over her shoulder and turned to scan the crowd and choose his first target. 

Poe’s success as a lobbyist had been built on his ability to work a room. Of course he was smart, with solid strategic instincts and a rolodex built up over twenty-five years on the HIll. Perhaps he was known to fall a little too in love with his own ideas, and he wasn’t always a great team player, but his incandescent smile and his ability to make anyone feel like he could be their best friend outweighed every flaw and made him a legend in the industry.

Rey watched the master at work, seeing how he nodded and tilted his head in towards a target to hear them in the noisy room. She noticed how he limited his substantive lobbying to a few key words, ensuring that his position would lodge in his target’s memory while he filled out the conversation with jokes and smiles and charm that made them feel good.

Ten minutes after she walked in, Poe had already introduced her to three committee staff and a fourth-generation Kennedy from somewhere in New England. He had turned away for a minute to meet someone else when Senator Solo walked in through a back door. Rey saw him immediately, his dark mane clearly visible above all the people between them, and watched him while he scanned the room. She saw the moment he noticed her, and felt a little bubble of warmth when his expression lightened and he headed straight toward her.

“How are you, Senator?” she asked.

At the sound of her greeting, Poe turned back toward her and took a step toward the Senator. Rey saw the taller man’s face fall a bit. She wondered how he ever managed to negotiate anything with a poker face like that.

“Well hello! It’s been a while. Good to see you.” Poe turned on his signature smile, but Rey noticed something different about it, a hesitation maybe, or a trace of tension in his eyes. 

And was the Senator reluctant to shake Poe’s offered hand? “Mr. Dameron.” He turned to Rey and took her hand, holding it a bit longer than he had Poe’s while he looked between the two of them. “Ms. Jackson. How do you two know each other?”

Rey began to answer, smiling up at the Senator, but Poe cut in, “Oh, Rey here is a rising star! The Scrap Recycling Association has been one of our strongest partners since she signed on.”

Rey did a mental double-take. It was clear that Poe didn’t want her telling the Senator that he was her housemate, but she wasn’t sure why. She laughed lightly and thanked Poe for the compliment in the moment, but she would be drilling Poe about it later.

Before the oddly tense situation got worse, the blonde woman who had led Rey out of the Senate dining room appeared behind her boss.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt. Hello, Ms. Jackson. Mr. Dameron? How charming to see you. I’m afraid I need to drag the Senator away for a moment.” She rested her manicured hand on his bicep to lead him away. Rey saw a muscle twitch in his jaw, but he did not resist. Excusing himself, he turned and followed her.

An hour later, Rey stepped out into the quieter hall to take a break from the noise that left her ears ringing. She had pulled out her phone and was typing up short notes of her conversations. She looked up, trying to remember what the Covanta lobbyist had said about a new waste-to-energy technology, and saw Senator Solo stick his head out into the hall. He seemed to be looking for someone. She smiled politely and went back to her notes, so she didn’t notice him walking towards her until he was close enough for the sound of his hard shoes on the marble floors to make it past the ringing in her ears.

“Had enough?” he asked.

“It’s a lot.” she smiled back at him.

“It is. Used to hate it.” 

“What made you start enjoying it?” Rey asked, genuinely curious.

“Who said I enjoy it? I just don’t hate it anymore. It’s a job.” He shook his head and lifted one corner of his mouth in a half smile. “I hated it when I thought I was supposed to enjoy it. But I hope you didn’t hate it?”

“Well, it’s definitely work. But no I didn’t hate it. It was fun, and fantastically helpful. Thank you so much.” She looked up into his eyes and watched the corner of his mouth drop as his expression became more sincere.

“No, no. Don’t thank me. You should be here, in things like this. You deserve to be heard.” He stood there, with both hands in his pockets, his baritone voice quiet and intimate, urging her to hear him. “You’re good, Ms. Jackson. Good at what you do.  Don’t let Dameron change your style.”

Rey grinned at that, laughing, “Oh, no worries there! Mr. Persuasion himself?” But the Senator wasn’t smiling, and Rey wondered again what there was between the men that she didn’t understand. “Anyway,” she continued, “thank you. I know I have a lot to learn…”   
  
“You do,” he interrupted, eyes shining with mischief. “You really do, and it’s going to be so much fun to watch.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, began to take his hands from his pockets and stopped, then looked down at his polished shoes for a beat. When he looked up his face was serious again.

“Good night, Ms. Jackson.”  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Senator Solo is baby...or is he? His reputation for ruthlessness and hardball politics isn’t just propaganda, even if a pair of pretty eyes distracted him momentarily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All love and gratitude to Flypaper_Brain for reading, commenting, and keeping me on an even keel through a bad month; to Leoba for hosting a writing weekend in her living room; and to all the Philly Reylos for being amazing artists and fun people!

Moden Canady had worked on the Hill for longer than Ben Solo had been alive, managing Members and their staff over on the House side through thick and thin, in power and out of it, with a steady hand that was rare in Washington and also completely undervalued. 

The Snoke brothers had introduced him to Senator Solo after his last boss self-immolated, brought down by a charge of sexual misconduct. Canady was usually quite skilled at steering his bosses away from those types of behaviors, and no one could blame him for something the Representative had done before she came to D.C, but the fact remained that Canady was out of a job mid-session with twin daughters in college and alimony to pay. He had been happy to take the job as Solo’s Legislative Director even though it was a step down and in spite of the fact that the Legislative Aides Phasma and Hux had hired before he arrived were too young, too inexperienced, and far too arrogant to be good at their jobs.

Five months in, Canady’s patient professionalism was beginning to pay off. Rae Sloane was the best of them, with a keen sense of politics and a firm manner that brought most lobbyists to heel in short order. He had seen solid improvements in the rest of them as well, but the young one - Mitaka - had been a mess for the last week, and Canady thought he knew what the problem was. So he had taken advantage of a few quiet minutes between the Senator’s morning run and his shower to corner him in his office.

“With all due respect, Senator, the wanker hasn’t been the same since you took that meeting with the scrap girls. Do you mind telling me what happened?”

Ben, who had been digging in a small closet for toiletries and shoes before heading over to the gym, stepped out to look at Candy quizzically. “The scrap girls? You mean Rey Jackson?”

“Scrap Recycling Association. The meeting you insisted on after Phasma told us to disregard that letter-writing campaign,” Canady explained.

“Phasma told you what?”

“Not to worry about the postcards. Said it wasn’t a concern and we were clear to run with 1725, not to waste time gathering more information.”

“Is that how you’d normally run a bill?” Ben’s sceptical look made it clear that he knew it was not.

“Wasn’t my bill, Sir,” Canady’s look was passive, but his hands in his pockets and the slight shrug of his shoulder suggested a man making an effort to be deferential.

Ben narrowed his eyes and looked hard at Canady, who returned his gaze without flinching. Ben was waiting for the complaint, the defensive stammer, the softener or self-justification that most subordinates would use to break the uncomfortable silence. Canady just stood there, letting the Senator draw his own conclusions.

“Well,  _ the wanker _ should be uncomfortable.” Ben zipped up his bag and headed for the door. “Whether or not he’s told to respond to constituent mail, he needs to know what’s in it. And he spoke out of turn when Ms. Jackson and her colleague were in my office. Shadow his meetings for the next week or so - if he doesn’t know how to take a back seat when his superiors are in the room this is the wrong office for him.”

“Very good.”

Ben let his office door slam behind him and stalked down the hall. 

Canady reminded him of his mother’s Chief of Staff, a short, round, balding man who had been able to communicate more with a single, stretched-out “hmmmmmm” than most people could in a paragraph. It was the highest expression of a political hack’s art, the ability to make a point without words, to maintain plausible deniability. With his steady look and thin veneer of deference, Canady had just told him what he had suspected for the last year, that Phasma, and possibly Hux, were playing a double game, serving interests other than his own.

He did not notice the early-arriving staff who gave him a wide berth as he ploughed down the corridor lost in thought. He could not have known how dangerous he looked, still in his running shorts and sweat-stained t-shirt, his dark hair failing to hide the glower on his face as he thought through his next steps. He was drawn up short when he caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the polished brass surrounding the elevator as he waited for the Senators-only car. Briefly, he thought it might not hurt to smile more, but headed for the stairs rather than risking another look at his own expression.

The gym attendant interrupted his shower ten minutes later.

“Senator Solo? Your office called. They need you back ASAP for a conference call. Can I tell them how long you’ll be?”

There were only two people who could be summoning him to an unscheduled, early-morning meeting, and he knew avoiding them would only make everything worse. Between the conversation with Canady and the interrupted shower, he had already burned through any endorphins he had generated during his run, so he allowed himself two deep breaths before answering. No point in taking out his frustration on the poor messenger.

“Tell them I’m dripping wet. Fifteen minutes, please.”

He stepped through the back door of his office with his necktie still lying loose around his collar and his running shoes in hand. Phasma was waiting for him.

“We’re in the conference room,” she told him, before walking out and calling to Baz that they were ready to start the call.

The Snokes had paid for state-of-the-art conferencing equipment, which allowed Ben to host impromptu Town Halls with his constituents and meet with small gatherings of high-value donors. But the real purpose of their investment was to enable meetings like this. A larger-than-life image of both of the Snoke brothers filled the screen. Ben could see a smaller image in the bottom corner - Hux had joined the call from the Indianapolis office.

 “Good morning, Senator Solo. Thank you for making time in your busy schedule to visit with us,” said the one on the right, Josiah, his voice dripping with sarcasm. The brothers were identical twins, but the matching scarring and malformations of their skulls were truly eerie. Ben could tell them apart only because Joshua had retained a bit more hair than his twin.

“I apologize for keeping you waiting. If I’d known you…”

Joshua cut him off, “Of course you would. Now, Hux here tells us you’ve been meeting with some new constituent groups. What’s that about?”

“I’m sorry. Hux?” 

Hux’s image took over the screen as he explained, “Your meeting with the Scrap Recycling association. Rey Jackson and Rose Tico?”

In the back of his mind, Ben wondered where Hux got the second name, which was never on his schedule. “Right. Yes, the association conducted a very successful letter-writing campaign, several hundred constituents and every state represented. It doesn’t help us to be blindsided if there’s any chance they’ll find support, so I wanted to hear what they had to say.”

“And how was your lunch?” Josiah asked slyly.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “Enjoyable. Ms. Jackson and Ms. Tico have a good grasp of what Indianans would respond to.” He leaned forward in his chair, “I feel like I’m missing something here, gentlemen. Is there a problem? Routine constituent meetings are not usually…”

Joshua interrupted again. He had neither patience nor a sense of humor, which was often a relief from his brother’s preferred mode of creeping innuendo and manipulative digs. “You don’t need to waste your time or your staff’s time on constituent meetings in opposition to S. 1725. It’s bulletproof. We have ensured it will be incorporated into the Energy bill. End of story.”

“It was a gift to you, Benjamin, and it feels as if you’re not grateful for it,” Josiah added. “A ready-made success that will be easy to sell to the soccer moms.”

Hux jumped in, “Our numbers with that group have been sliding, sir, as I’ve tried to warn the Senator.”

Ben made the effort to ignore Hux and kept his attention on the Snokes. “Of course I am grateful. Your continued support and consideration are invaluable. I’d be - honestly - disturbed if anything I’ve done or said suggested otherwise.”

“Well, your actions have in fact suggested that you don’t value our contributions.” Josiah looked pained.

Next to him, his brother’s face was pure rage as he spat out, “We put you in that seat, young Solo, and your constituents will think about you whatever we tell them to think. Your insubordination will not be tolerated.”

Josiah patted Joshua’s shoulder, “No need for that, Josh. I’m sure Benjamin understands. But perhaps we’ve put too much pressure on him. Perhaps we should find someone else to work with on a few of these issues.”

Ben’s teeth were clenched during Joshua’s speech, but he forced himself to relax again before he said, “Gentlemen, that won’t be necessary. We are all eager to work with you on this and anything else you have an interest in. I’m proud to have my name on the Scrap Recycling bill, and was really just acting out of an abundance of caution. Going forward, perhaps you wouldn’t mind a quick chat when questions like these arise? Just so I don’t go off half-cocked. I really can’t tell you how much I value your experience here.”

Josiah smiled, a broad, happy smile that almost succeeded in making his scarred face look sweet and grandfatherly. “Very good! And of course we’d be delighted to offer any wisdom we can.”

“Joe, you are far too easily mollified. Hux, we’ll continue this conversation offline.” Joshua leaned forward and the picture abruptly disappeared.

Phasma, who had been standing in the doorway out of range of the camera, sighed. “Well, that was unfortunate.”

Ben looked at her, chewing the inside of his cheeks as he thought before speaking. “It was. We’ll need to do something about it. Have you been able to persuade them to shake loose a hearing on 1725 yet? Move that to the top of your list. Hey, when is your next meeting with the legislative staff?”

“Well, Canady is in charge of those now…”   
“But you still attend, don’t you?”

“When I can.”

“Put the next one on my calendar, too. I’d like to see how he’s doing with them.”

 

The rhythmic crunch of gravel beneath her running shoes was one of Rey’s favorite sounds, so she rarely bothered with music on her morning runs. As her breathing synced to her steps, it sometimes soothed her into a kind of meditation. On an overcast morning in the last week of June, she had just found that rare state of zen when she noticed her footsteps had grown louder, doubled even, and she looked over to see Senator Solo keeping pace with her.

“Mind company?” He didn’t go so far as to smile at her when she turned her head, but he raised his eyebrows with his question and waited for her response.

She smiled and shook her head once, dropping back a fraction of a step to allow him to draw even with her, but she didn’t speak and neither did he. For the whole long stretch past the Smithsonian castle and the Department of Agriculture, they just ran, listening to their matching strides on the gravel. Their eyes met once as they turned to check for cars before jogging against the light across 14th Street, but it wasn’t until they had mounted the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that Rey broke their mutual silence.

Rey had glanced at his face as he took the last several stairs two at a time, eyes fixed on the marble figure of the president. “Which of these is your favorite?” she asked, gesturing at the speeches carved on the north and south walls.

“Second inaugural address. No question.”

They turned to jog down the stairs again. “Why?”

He laughed. “You’re going to answer these questions, too, right?”

“Depends how long you take to spit it out,” Rey snapped back with a smile.

“The contrast with everything before it, everything after. You know about the rhetoric, right? How Lincoln shocked people because he used so few words. But the power he found in those words…” The Senator’s sentences came out in bursts, until he took a deep breath to quote, “’ _ Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.’”  _

Rey enjoyed the Senator’s regular speaking voice, but the way he used it to emphasize what he loved about Lincoln’s prose was almost hypnotic. When he finished the quote he turned to find her watching him as he explained, “He gives the two sides equal weight in words, but one makes war, one accepts it.” He grinned. “Are you taking notes?”

“Of course, Professor,” she teased.

“Your turn.”

“ Probably the same. The economy of it. He sums up the cause of the war and makes the case for continuing in, what?, like 500 words. He had to be jaw-droppingly brilliant.”

The Senator nodded beside her, “What did Jefferson say? ‘ _ I have not the time to be brief...’ _ ?”

“Exactly! Yeah. But the best part is the end, ‘ _ to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan _ .’” Her voice broke around the words that always brought her to tears. “The speech is all about continuing the war, but he isn’t jingoistic, antagonistic. He ends with that plea to bring the nation back together.” She didn’t look at him, afraid that her idealism and emotion could earn her a mocking response.

That thought reminded her that what she was doing was odd. Running in companionable silence with a U.S. Senator was not something she would find easy to explain to anyone else in her life. She had a job to do, and this was an unexpected opportunity to do it. At the same time she didn’t want the interlude to end, and she suspected that it would all be over as soon as she spoke up. 

“Senator, can I ask you another question?”

“Shoot.”

“It’s a work question.”

He nodded at her to continue.

“So, I’m wondering, is there any room for you to change your position on that scrap recycling provision?”

“You mean the bill I co-sponsored? The one with my name on it?”

“Right. The one that will kill jobs and stifle innovation.”

He didn’t respond to that, and Rey looked over to see him frowning, his eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude about it…”

“Not taking it personally, just thinking. Give me a minute.” His eyes were fixed on the Capitol in front of them as he thought, and Rey waited.

Finally, he asked, “What’s your strategy if I don’t move?”

Rey hesitated for a moment, not sure if she should reveal her strategy to a target, let alone this one. As she thought, he continued, “There aren’t that many avenues open to you on the Senate side. You’re either going to round up opposition votes or recruit someone on the Committee to keep it out of the Energy bill.” She saw him look over at her as he asked, “Right?”

“Right. The Committee’s the safer route, but we didn’t have any way in there until last week. Casterfo’s staff seem interested in talking to us more at the reception.” Her thoughts continued as she ran a few more paces in silence. 

“Which is where we met them - I guess I should thank you for that?”

He smiled but said nothing.

“Was that intentional?”

His smile twisted a bit with discomfort. “It wasn’t really intentional, but I knew you’d find other audiences there. Nothing I did would have made them listen to you, though. That was all you.”

“Well, thank you.”

“You know nothing anybody does here is altruistic, right?”

“I’ve heard that.”

“A wise man once told me, years ago now, ‘Solo, this is Washington. You can be certain that where there’s smoke, there’s mirrors.’”

The punchline surprised a shout of laughter from Rey’s lips, and she looked over to see the Senator smiling at the memory. “So what’s in this for you, then, Senator?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me.” They stopped to wait for the light to change, and he turned toward her. “Honestly? When you pulled me up off the ground the first day you accosted me?” He tossed the harsh verb at her with a smile. “I had a feeling that you might save my ass someday, and I’ve learned not to ignore instincts like that.” His smile shrank a bit, lost its humor. 

He looked down at his feet in a way that Rey was beginning to associate with him changing the subject, so she beat him to the punch, “You don’t strike me as someone whose ass needs saving all that often.”

It was his turn to bark out a surprised laugh. “Well, that’s another thing to remember about Washington. You never know when you’ll need help, or who will be in a position to provide it.” His smile had disappeared completely, and Rey had the sudden urge to reassure him, though she had no idea what thoughts were churning behind his troubled eyes.

The light changed, and they continued to run in silence. Rey racked her brains for words to express her support, but she second-guessed everything that came to mind and they had arrived at their dividing point before she knew it. 

She slowed to a stop beside him, and impulsively held out her hand. She had had the crazy urge to hug him, just as she would hug Rose or Finn if they looked as concerned as he did. Shaking his hand was a poor substitute, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave him without some show of support.

He looked down at her hand and took it, one eyebrow raised in a question as he held it without shaking it or letting go. His eyes were intent on her face, and she saw half a dozen expressions cross his eyes - a plea, a promise, anguish, delight - a stream of thoughts she couldn’t begin to understand. He finally released her hand with the same small, vulnerable smile he had worn when he confessed that he thought she might save him someday.

“Thank you, Ms. Jackson. For letting me interrupt your run.” Without moving, he seemed to draw away from her, his professional demeanor restored.

“Any time, Senator,” Rey replied, as casually as she could manage, and jogged off toward home.

 

Ben slowed to a walk as he headed back to his office, needing the extra time to gather his thoughts. It had felt easy and good to confess his sense of connection to the girl, but the thought of it now made him nauseous. Everything he had done since announcing his run for the Senate had been designed to mask the chaos that roiled inside Ben Solo, and the distance that mask created had been one of the secrets of his success. Now, some part of him longed to close that distance and the impulse made him furious.

He had fought hard to get where he was. There was no question the Snokes’ money and connections had made his election easier, but he had known he was going to be a Senator when he was still in high school. If he had had to get there some other way, he would have. 

He had constructed a self that suited his will to power, his drive to control events. He never appeared less than confident and powerful. There was nothing he hated more than schmoozing with strangers and asking for help, but he had spent countless exhausting hours doing those things to get where he was. He had listened to his mother work through her fundraising call lists every Sunday afternoon for the first eighteen years of his life, so the words came easily to him, even if he stumbled over the emotions they were meant to communicate.

All of his work to get where he was was on the line now. Though the Snokes had invested years in grooming him, and millions of dollars in his elections, he didn’t doubt that they could knock him out of his seat as easily as they’d put him in it. He had underestimated their interest in the Scrap Recycling bill, but the strategy he had been incubating over the last few days should settle their minds, at least.

A memory came to him of a photograph that had been everywhere when he was a child. It showed his mother on the phone at her Senatorial desk, while Ben, three or four years old, played with a toy spaceship on the carpet in the foreground. It had been on her campaign literature for years, long after he had outgrown the spaceship. To her voters, it showed Superwoman, a loving mom at work. Ben saw an emblem of his place in her life. 

He had learned from it, though: success in politics required sacrifice. He would see himself damned before he repeated her mistake and sacrificed someone he loved to his ambition. He had never had to test that resolution before, and he wasn’t going to put himself in the position to test it now. Rey Jackson might have been a pleasant distraction in different circumstances, but he was not going to waste his time regretting something he couldn’t change. 

He didn’t doubt his instincts: she would still play a role in saving his ass. But perhaps not the role he had implied by hanging onto her hand like a lovesick puppy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moden Canady demanded a part in this story. He stands in here for all of the hundreds of hardworking professional congressional staffers who make an art of their job. We see their bosses looking smart, capable, relaxed; these women and men are doing the hard work to make that possible 20 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.
> 
> I started this story on a whim, then came up with this long fluffy outline, in which Senator Solo is a nearly reformed cinnamon roll and Rey whips him into shape in short order. But you know, as much as I love a guy who's nearly there and just needs a little romantic motivation to carry him the last few yards over the finish line to redemption, I needed to give our heroes a chance to show their true colors first. So this continues to be constructed one chapter at a time...who knows what's next? What do you think?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The July 4th recess brings a bit of peace and quiet to Capitol HIll, but a hearing on Senator Solo’s bill means Rey is not getting a break. It’s super hot, the stakes are high, and sometimes it’s just really hard to think before you speak, you know?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was already thinking of this dedication when I saw a Twitter review of The Report today, and it made me laugh out loud: “A powerful political procedural that relies a bit too much on dumping information but is nevertheless riveting” (@griffschiller) I'm guessing if you’re still here that sounds like an awesome movie to you, too! Anyway, I wanted to give a shoutout to Bittersnake for asking a question on the RFFA Discord months ago about one thing we could each write about at great length without research, and another to America_OreosandKitKats for her amazing Reylo fic [Children of Violence ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6061861/chapters/13895824) that digs into the Afghan war, which gave me confidence that real-world political processes could be perfectly appropriate and potentially compelling subjects for fan fiction.

Rey hoisted her bike through the front door of the house and sighed in relief at the feeling of cool air on her skin. She would have thought growing up in the desert would make it easier to bear the heat, but nothing could prepare her for the DC swamp and the feeling of having a hot, wet towel thrown over her nose and mouth every time she went outside.

Mercifully the Senate buildings were all connected by tunnels, so she didn’t spend the day running in and out of the oppressive air. The Energy and Commerce committee had scheduled a hearing on S. 1725 right after the July 4th recess, and suddenly Senate staff were all over her inbox, eager for one-on-one meetings to understand the scrap industry’s opposition.

Each new email from a senate.gov address brought a little rush of pride, and she kept telling her it was ok to enjoy her success - win or lose, these meetings meant that dozens of offices would know more about the Industry and how it worked; however, at 8:00pm on a sweltering night after twelve hours of meetings, she felt nothing but dread and anxiety. When were they going to find out that she really had no idea what she was doing? 

If it weren’t for Senator Solo’s assistance, she would still be pounding on locked doors. She knew the work she was doing now was productive no matter what came after, but the Senator’s comments about the absence of altruism and smoke and mirrors nagged at her and made her wonder what she was missing.

She hung up her bike, dropped her computer bag at her desk, and stripped out of her damp blouse and slacks, blissfully allowing the cool air to dry her bare skin. She threw on a rumpled cotton shift dress and headed back out to the kitchen to look for leftovers she could eat while she worked.

A green-clad body was lodged in the refrigerator, unmoving, and Rey couldn’t resist giving its rump a hard pat. The body, Finn’s, lurched back and yelped.

“Are you actually looking for something to eat or just doing your part to run up Poe’s utility bills?” she asked.

“Both. It’s nine million degrees outside, Rey, and the effing AC was broken on the Metro. I had symptoms of heat stroke. Emergency measures needed to be taken,” Finn argued. There were damp patches down the front of his cotton shirt and pants - surgical scrubs.

Rey raised her eyebrows, “New rotation? I thought you had clinic today?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I did. But these are cooler than my street clothes and I can sneak them back into the hospital laundry tomorrow!”

Rey nodded in approval of Finn’s frugality, “Nice perk! But get out, please. Go shower and I’ll find us something to eat.”

Two hours later they were stretched out at opposite ends of the couch in the front room, Finn with the latest edition of  _ Neuropsychiatry Journal _ and Rey with a heavily marked-up copy of her Chair’s official testimony for the upcoming hearing. Senator Casterfo had come through for her in a big way; his decision to invite the elected head of her association to testify was a very welcome surprise. She had been going through it a final time, tweaking it to sound more like the Chairman and less like her, but it was late, and she was staring at a spot in the corner of the room, work forgotten in her lap, when her phone rang.

She didn’t recognize the number, and automatically answered as if it were a work call, “This is Rey Jackson.”

“Ms. Jackson, my name is Zorri Hutchins, from _ The Hill _ ? I’m writing a background piece on S. 1725 and wondered if I could get a quote from you.”

It was late for a reporter to call for a story that wasn’t exactly urgent, but Rey wasn’t going to ignore opportunity knocking no matter how late it was! “Of course? What’s your angle?”

“It’s an overview of the issues, but I talked to Senator Solo earlier today, and I wanted to get your reaction.”

“Sure.”

“I have a quote here, maybe this is a good jumping-off point? ‘Industrial scrap is essentially toxic waste. It needs to be regulated as such. Sure, every kindergartner knows that recycling is great, but the people recycling this filthy junk can’t - or won’t - tell you what’s really in it. This bill is an environmental protection measure that lays out higher standards to protect the workers inside these factories and the families living nearby.’”

Rey felt her blood pressure go up, but she tried to remain calm. “May I ask, was that a quote directly from the Senator or was it something his staff gave you?”

“Pretty sure it was him!” she laughed. “He has that distinctive voice, you know?”

Rey knew.

She  _ should _ have referred the reporter to her Chairman, then asked for a few minutes to prep him with a carefully crafted response. He was the officially elected head of the Association, and he really  _ should _ be the one in the paper. She  _ should _ have asked for more information about the story itself and the need to get quotes at 10pm, which would have given her a minute to think about how to respond. 

Instead, she reacted.

“Senator Solo’s bill is a disingenuous effort to pit environmentalists against one another. If he cared about families and workers...hang on. Let me start over. The Senator has sponsored more than a dozen bills in the past session alone that undermine protections for workers in the fossil fuel industry. He infamously stripped local governments of the right to regulate coal-powered electric plants. My members are the future of the environmental movement. Reusing scrap requires less energy and reduces the need for new raw materials. My members are developing new, cleaner ways to extract value from the Senator’s ‘filthy junk,’ and…”

“Um, could you hang on a minute. I’m trying to write this down. My tape ran out,” the reporter interrupted.

“Oh, sure.” In the pause, Rey began to think about what she had already said and wondered if she shouldn’t try to be more conciliatory.

“OK. I caught up. Go ahead?”

Rey spoke slowly, considering her words more carefully. “So, what I mean to say is, we are delighted that the Senator has come around to the need for stronger environmental protections, but we believe his emphasis is misplaced, and we are concerned that his bill will ultimately be counterproductive.”

“Got it. Thanks so much for your time! Good night.”

“Good night.”

She put her phone down and turned to see Finn watching her. “What was that?” he asked.

“A reporter.”

“Right. I got that. I meant what you were saying. You were  _ on fire _ ! It was amazing!”

“Well, yeah, I was on fire...but that’s not necessarily good...Oh, hell.” She began to pace.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Finn asked.

“They’ll use the strongest quote. The one that’s most polarizing. Shit. The Senator will never talk to me again!”

After another hour of fretting, wondering if she should try to withdraw her quote (unprofessional) or write the Senator a note apologizing in advance (premature...they might not use her quote, right?), she decided she would be better off sleeping and evaluating it with a clear head in the morning. Sleeping on it was a good idea in theory, but she lay awake for another hour thinking about the likelihood of losing her job. When she finally fell asleep, her anxious subconscious sent her weird dreams featuring an empty raft adrift on the ocean, a guide dog named Senator leading two blind men through a coal mine, and a group of people in scrubs laughing at her.

She dragged herself out of bed the next morning dreading the day ahead, but by the time she had slurped up an iced coffee, taken a cool shower, and remembered that  _ The Hill  _ only published when Congress was in session, her natural optimism had managed to drown out her anxiety. There were a dozen ways that things could turn out really well, and only one or two scenarios that would lead to disaster. She could survive those. She always had. No use borrowing trouble.

Most of the Senator’s staff were on leave before the long weekend, and Moden Canady enjoyed the lack of company in the Legislative Room for several hours that morning. 

He pulled up his email to check it one last time before moving operations to the baseball stadium for the rest of the day, and opened _ The Hill _ ’s daily “12:30 Report” to scan for anything relevant. He clicked on a story about his boss’s bill, and a few seconds later let out a shout of laughter. The echoes rang off the high ceilings and empty desks for several minutes before he calmed down and wiped his eyes.

“Oh, that poor girl,” he shook his head as he shut down the computer. He was still chuckling as he pulled on his faded  _ Senators _ cap and locked up the office.

Rey stayed focused and optimistic through the morning. She sent the draft of the Chair’s testimony off for his review, took two meetings with friendly staff, and responded to an email from Committee staff wanting advice on what to ask the other witnesses at the hearing. She pulled out the salad she brought for lunch and was scrolling through her email when the “12:30 Report” came in. 

She had forgotten about the daily newsletter.

The story about the Energy bill was right up at the top. At first, she was relieved to see she wasn’t mentioned in the blurb, but when she clicked through, the first thing she saw was a photograph of Senator Solo. Her stomach began to roil as she read the caption, “Association lobbyist argues there are ‘cleaner ways to extract value from the Senator’s ‘filthy junk.’”

“No, no, NO!” Rey moaned, dropping her head repeatedly against the hard corner of her desk. The pain in her head distracted her from the nausea. She had stopped and laid her cheek against the cool surface when her phone rang.

“Hey, Sunshine! That’s quite a quote!” Poe’s voice rang with the echo of his laughter, and Rey’s self-control fractured.

“Fuck you, Dameron! This is all your fault!” She angrily snuffled back tears and tried to speak coherently. “This issue wouldn’t even make it into the news if it weren’t for your damned ‘let’s-get-the-kid-to-embarrass-herself-in-front-of-the-Senator’ bullshit joke!”

“Whoa! Hang on, kid. It’s not bad! You want to be in the news, right?”

“Yeah, but with a pull quote about the Senator’s  _ junk _ ?!” Rey shrieked. 

Rey watched as her email refreshed and said more quietly, “Oh, hell no.”

“What is it?”

“My Chair just sent me a link to a  _ Wall Street Journal _ piece.”

“And?”

“The only thing he says is ‘call me.’ Oh, God, no. This isn’t happening.” She clicked into the  _ WSJ _ story and was relieved to find the paper’s conservative tendencies working in her favor. They hadn’t included the “filthy junk” quote at all.

“How is it? Say something, Sunshine.”

“It’s ok. Not great, but not a disaster? Read it while I call my Chair.” She forwarded the email to Poe and hung up on him abruptly.

Rey felt calmer after she wrangled calls from her Chairman and two other members. More people were going to read the  _ Wall Street Journal _ piece than an insider publication like  _ The Hill _ , and Zorri Hutchins had used Rey’s full quote in the body of her article, so it was clear that the photo editor alone was to blame for the humiliating caption.

When another call came in around 2:00pm, she was able to take a deep breath and center herself before answering.

“Scrap Recycling Association. Rey Jackson speaking.”

“Good afternoon! Listen, I was hoping to reach your press office?”

“You got it.”

“Oh, um, I’m sorry. Did you say this was Rey Jackson?”

“I did. We’re a one-woman show. How can I help you?” she asked, trying to curb her impatience. This was beginning to sound like a sales call and she had actual work to do.

“Well great! You’re the woman we wanted anyway. This is Snap Wexley. I’m a producer with CNN? We’re pulling together a series on the Energy bill and would really like to include something on the scrap recycling industry. I was hoping we could talk on background now, and then see if you have any ideas about other people we can talk to on the record. Maybe some B-roll of your members’ operations?”

Rey sat in stunned silence for a moment, until she heard the producer ask, “Ms. Jackson? Are you still there?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure am! Listen, I’m going into a Hill meeting right now - could you talk in half an hour? I just don’t want to be distracted.”

“No problem. Just call this number when you’re out.”

Rey ended the call and redialed Poe. “Damn you, Dameron! Do people say that a lot? They really should.”

“Yeah, not since middle school. I take it the call with your Chair did not go well?”

“Oh, that was great. Fine. No problems there. Listen, do you know a guy named Snap Wexley? CNN producer?”

“Sure. He’s been on and off this beat for ages. We worked for the same Senator for a while, I think, but he was in the field office when I was in DC. Why?”

“They want to do a story.”

“That’s great!”

“NO! No, it sucks! We don’t have a media strategy! We can’t afford to get one on a normal day, let alone in a crisis. Poe, I’m going to let them all down. Oh God.” Rey’s voice melted into sobs as the day’s events and lack of sleep overtook her.

“Hey, Sunshine. Hey. It’s going to be good. You are better than you know, Honey. Shh,” he soothed. “I’ve got an idea. Can you hang on?”

“Noooo! I said I’d call him back in half an hour!”

“He doesn’t want quotes yet, though, right? This is a get-to-know-you call. It’s like a staff visit with someone who understands the issue already. You rock those meetings. You’ll be fine. And then I’ll swing by your office and we’ll get you a media strategy.”

Rey hiccuped, “OK. I can do that.”

It was the hottest part of the afternoon, near 4:00pm, and the AC unit in the window wheezed and rattled like it was ready to give up. The thermostat read 85° and Rey was lying flat on the floor reasoning that it might be a few tenths of a degree cooler down there. The front door buzzer went off and she crawled over to buzz Poe in, then returned to her spot on the floor. Soon she heard two pairs of feet on the creaking wooden steps, and a pair of voices, but she was too exhausted to process the information before she heard Poe laughing from the doorway. She sat up with a scowl on her face, then scrambled to her feet when she saw an unfamiliar woman next to him.

“I’m so sorry! Rey Jackson,” she said, offering her hand.

The woman laughed. “Please, don’t get up on my account! Larma D’Acy.” The woman’s sharp features were softened by curly, greying blonde hair, and her hand was cool and strong when Rey shook it.

Poe explained, “Larma’s an old friend from my time on the Hill. She runs a communications shop on K Street now.”

Rey felt tears well up in her eyes. “Wow. Thank you so much! I’m just so tired...and you’re so kind to come. But did Poe explain our, um, financial situation?”

“Oh, yeah. No worries about that. We’ll figure something out if this becomes more permanent, but really, nothing’s as fun as a good crisis. Do you have a whiteboard?”

Three hours later Poe hailed a cab for Larma and another for himself and Rey. “Hawk ‘n’ Dove,” Poe told the cabby, before turning to Rey. “You need a drink? I need a drink. Come with me?” 

“Sure, but you might need to carry me home...I’m so tired already.”

“We’ll figure something out.” Poe flashed her his brightest smile.”That was really great, Rey. I know you’re worried - but you impressed the hell outta Larma. She’s not an easily impressed type of person.”

“I don’t feel impressive, but I feel so much better. Those ideas we sent Wexley are solid. Just having a strategy is really reassuring...calming.”

“Good girl!” Poe threw an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a sideways hug. 

Rey shut her eyes, but the sense of peace lasted only a moment before the feeling of dread reasserted itself and she sat upright again. “Poe? We never talked about the Senator. What the hell should I say to him...I mean not publically, as part of the strategy, but to him directly.”

Rey climbed out of the cab and Poe paid their fare while Rey peered through the condensation-fogged windows of the bar to see how crowded it was. She needed to talk tonight, and the Hawk and Dove was not known as the place to hear and be heard. But with Congress out of session, there was no one in the bar. Rey was relieved when the server led them to a deserted row of booths.

Poe put in their orders (“Nachos?” Rey had asked hopefully. “One each?”), and then went uncharacteristically quiet.

Rey prodded him, “So, what do I say to the Senator?”

Poe sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands, “Yeah. That’s a problem. He does take himself pretty seriously...not sure if you really can say anything that he’ll listen to at this point.”

Rey’s tired mind was working slowly, but the memory of Poe cutting her off as they met the Senator at the Committee reception drifted in and she figured it was the perfect time to put Poe on the spot. 

“How exactly do you know him, Poe? Like, you seem to know a lot about him, but you two talked like alpha dogs longing to piss all over each other.”

“Really? I guess that’s not far from it. But it’s not competition - or he might have thought that’s what was going on, I guess? Maybe he thought we were together? Wouldn’t that be interesting?” he smirked. Rey felt her face grow hot and hoped he wouldn’t notice the blush creeping up her cheeks.

Poe wasn’t in the mood to keep teasing, though. “No, I just know too much about him. And he knows I know. But it’s personal shit, not something I’d spread around. He just doesn’t trust me, or anyone really.”

“So I guess I shouldn’t ask you what you know?”

“Probably not, but what the hell.” Their beers arrived and Poe asked the server for another round. “This is a two- or three-beer conversation,” he explained.

“Remember when you did your homework on him and you read about his family?”

“Of course.”

“D’you remember who his mom is?”   
  
“Senator Organa?”

“Right. My first boss here. And my second and fourth, actually.” Poe laughed and drained the first beer as the second round came out. “I came out and served as her page when I was still in high school. My parents knew her from when they’d all been active in the Student Non-violent Coordinating Council. It’s all incestuous here, right?”

“I was fifteen. Ben must have been twelve? Thirteen? Sullen, awkward looking, not a lot of charm. Super smart though. Gary Hart actually hired him as a debate stand-in in ‘84. To train with? Whipped his ass, too.”

“He got into some trouble at Georgetown Prep - the usual thing with kids who are too smart. He got bored or something and wasn’t so good at managing his anger. I mean, who is at that age? His mom asked me to take him under my wing, give him a big brother to look up to. But after a couple of times hanging out I guess he figured out that his mom had put me up to it, and he totally shut down. I actually really liked him - he was funny as shit - but after that he wouldn’t talk to me. His mom asked me out to their place for Thanksgiving and he spent three days in the barn to avoid me.”

“Anyway, by the time I came up for my internship in college, he was away at school somewhere. I think his uncle got him into an accelerated program at the academy where he taught. Then he was at University of Chicago in his first year, the last time I came onto Leia’s staff.”

“That was the year everything went to hell, I guess. He left UC and enlisted in the Marines. Didn’t consult his parents about it, just sent them a forwarding address at Parris Island and disappeared for another couple of years. His mom was heartbroken. His dad...I’m really not sure, I think he just took off for a while. At least, the Senator went to official functions alone that year, or with her friend Amilyn Holdo. She changed during that year. Less confident, I think. Just as determined and strategic, but I think she had to work to overcome her doubt every day.”

“That’s what I know. For all it’s worth twenty years later. The rest you probably read already. It’s all public, anyway.”

Rey had plowed through most of her platter of nachos while Poe talked, and she gestured for him to dig in. They sat in silence while Rey absorbed Poe’s story and Poe put a dent in his dinner.

“I still don’t understand why. Or how, I guess. How do you walk away from a family? A home?” Rey wondered. Poe reached for her hand in a moment of silent sympathy. He knew how different her childhood had been from his and Ben’s.

“I guess part of it, maybe, is that no one ever let him forget who his family was. He was always ‘the Senator’s son’, and later ‘the Communist’s grandson’, right? All of  _ that _ came out right before he walked away from his scholarship at Chicago. Actually, Larma was the communications director then - that was her first big crisis, dealing with the fallout from the Skywalker papers,” he added as an aside.“There was even some BS about stripping Ben of his scholarship because his grandfather was a traitor. People implied it hadn’t been awarded for merit, but for who his mom was.”

Poe paused to choose his words, looking more serious than she was used to seeing him. “It was just, you know, a lot for a kid. For anyone. And he didn’t make it easier for himself - no friends of his own, too smart for his own good.” He sighed.

“‘Nother round?” he asked.

“I’m good.” She held up her half-full bottle.

Poe smiled and went on. “Tell you one thing he can’t walk away from, though. He is the most determined fucker there ever was. Got that from his mom. This one time…” Poe’s charm was back in full force as he told her war stories from his time on the Senator’s staff.

Rey had known about Leia Organa’s public persona and her accomplishments. She had heard a bit about her father, too, but all of that had blown over before Rey was paying attention to the news. But all of the stories about her pragmatism, her deviousness, her bawdy sense of humor and her pure bloody-minded determination were a revelation, and Rey was eager to hear more in spite of her strong desire to sleep.

Tipping back the last sip of his beer, Poe called for the tab and stood up. “Gonna hit the head, then get you home. Don’t fall asleep while I’m gone, Sunshine.” 

Rey managed to keep her eyes open long enough to get home, strip, and fall into bed. She wanted to think more about what Poe had said and what it meant about who Ben Solo really was. All she could manage was a single memory, the Senator joking about having gravel pulled out of his ass after he fell. His smile while he said it was the most charming thing she thought she’d ever seen.

She fell asleep with her lips still drawn into a smile of her own.

Dawn and a ping from her phone worked together to wake Rey early in the morning a week later.

Senator  
  
Can you find some time to talk today  
  
Sure  
  
Do I need to prepare anything?  
  
Probably not. Want to consult RE: Hearing  
  
With the opposition?  
  
I've got 7:45, 9:30, 2pm maybe?, or 3:20  
  
3:20. Let's get out of the office. Under the Senate steps?  
  
Should say congrats on all the coverage  
  
About that  
  
Later.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta, the talented and perceptive [Flypaper_Brain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bquery%5D=flypaper_brain), wrote “I am very amused by how it sounds like he's taking her to a Starbucks where they serve [media] strategies instead of coffee.” And that reminded me to say that while this is still probably too realistic, it is also wildly unrealistic. You can actually come up with a rudimentary media strategy in a few hours — if you know your issues, audiences, and messengers well — but I don’t mean to imply that professional strategists aren’t earning their money when they take weeks to do what our heroes did in an evening.
> 
> And to all of you who remember the old Hawk n Dove (pre-2011), tell us about it in the comments! Or come shout at me on Twitter where I'm @elderreylo


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